ยกHola!
In continuing the theme, I feel compelled to let you all know that on Wednesday we all woke up. It was another beautiful day in the DR, and we were spending it on the beach! However, instead of pina coladas and snorkels we had rakes and garbage bags, as today we were cleaning up a beach with kids from Renecer. Just as in Canada, Dominican highschoolers have to complete 40 hours of community service, and we would be joining them in a beach-cleanup as part of it. The drive to the beach was 30 minutes Dominican time, an hour in the end, but there were no complaints as the drives are an enjoyed part of any day here. This particular drive was along the coast which was beautiful. We arrived at the beach and received instructions from the events organizers, volunteers for an organization called Parley. We then raced down to the beach to begin collecting the copious amounts of bottles and hard plastics that littered the shore. We worked for a short amount of time, however, still managed to collect thousands of bottles and many bags of plastics. We then said goodbye to our Renecer friends for the day, before going on a walk along the coast to explore an enormous monument. Then we went home for lunch. The rest of the day was largely unplanned, which left room for journaling, homework, a walk to watch baseball, and napping. Those who know me well know that when given the choice between a walk and a nap I choose the former every time! The rest of our day was dinner (arroz y habichuelas con pollo), circle time (featuring our new compliment circle), and an evening in which people spread out around the compound to chat, journal, read, and sleep.
Shockingly, we all woke up again on Thursday. We arrived at breakfast to partake in our daily serving of fresh pineapple and mango, but were greeted with some unexpected news. Our neighborhood school's assembly that we were asked to attend that morning was going to be at least three hours long. We learned that it was a grade 12 end-of-year assembly, and that was more of a church service than an assembly we are used to back home. So, we all got changed into church clothes, grabbed the guitar, and walked over to the ministry centre, were the event was taking place. We took our seats among the small group of students, and participated in worship while we waited for our chance to sing. We then sang My Lighthouse and How Great is Our God before the pastor came in to speak. At this point, team members were allowed to slip out of the service at any point, and many people exercised this right. The sermon wasn't translated, so it's impact on us was limited. However, after the message, 6 of the students came up front to accept Jesus, so it's safe to say that it had a major impact on the Domincan students. The pastor then took turns praying for people individually, including our group. He prayed over each of the 6 of us that remained, (8 including Henry and Yvonne), and even offered us each prophetic words. This experience was well worth the three hours of sitting through the sermon!
Immediately following the assembly we ate lunch, before working on our Canada presentation. We will be presenting it to Renecer's grade 12 class later, teaching them about Canada's culture and history, and so we spent the afternoon working on the slideshow and script. After we had finished a sizable amount of the presentation, a group of us went to play baseball at a local field. It's safe to say that we are not incredibly skilled at the sport, the local kids put us to shame, however, we had a lot of fun. Then we returned home for dinner, and our second piece of unexpected news. As we chowed down on our daily rice and beans we learned that we were going bowling! So, we finished quickly, had our small groups and circle time, and piled into the van. We arrive at the bowling alley with high spirits, ready to spend the next hour laughing, competing and celebrating. It's safe to say that many of us are not particularly skilled at baseball or bowling, however, this fact didn't lessen the enjoyment of the evening whatsoever. The hour went quickly, time really does fly when you're having fun, and so we were soon heading out of the building in search of ice cream. We found it, and headed home with happy hearts and happy stomachs.
-Alice
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